Rhythm & Blues and theSouthern Dream of Freedom

— and —

I am the son of a preacher man.

Throughout the 1960s and ’70s, my dad was the rector of All Saints Episcopal Church
in downtown Atlanta, where I grew up in the civil rights era listening to Top 40 AM radio,
which at the time was eclectic and democratic, playing everything from the Beatles,
Beach Boys, Petula Clark, Roger Miller and Glen Campbell to James Brown, Wilson
Pickett, Sam and Dave and Otis Redding.

In 1968, when Dusty Springfield had a huge hit (recorded in Memphis) with “Son of a
Preacher Man,” I was 13 years old, and I wondered if she was singing about me.

Possibilities for the future looked favorable.

But as much as the lyric titillated me, I was just as intrigued by the sound. I didn’t realize
it at the time, but while my dad was preaching in support of the passage of the Civil
Rights Act, I was hearing the sound of another force that was breaking through the
longstanding and evil walls that divided Southerners.

When the fights over racial integration of public facilities were at their height, the kids
making and listening to soul music were already miles ahead of the generations that
came before them. In a rundown movie theater on McLemore Avenue in Memphis, the
house band at Stax Records was Booker T. & the M.G.’s, two young black musicians
and two young white ones. In Muscle Shoals, a bunch of white country boys were laying
down grooves behind — and writing songs for — some of the greatest soul singers
ever.

In Augusta, Ga., James Brown had been doing his thing since the late 1950s. But
Southern soul — as a distinct musical genre — fully emerged in the early 1960s from
the confluence of gospel, blues and R&B: a “gospel-based ... emotion-baring” music, in
the words of music historian Peter Guralnick.

The meccas of Southern soul were Memphis, where Stax Records and Hi Records
churned out hits by everyone from Eddie Floyd to Al Green, and north Alabama, where
FAME (Florence Alabama Music Enterprises) Studios and Muscle Shoals Sound (with
their legendary Swampers house band) were producing hits from Wilson Pickett, Aretha
Franklin and Clarence Carter, among many others. A host of smaller labels sprang up in
Memphis to produce significant soul sides, most notably a small label founded by
Quinton Claunch and Doc Russell called Goldwax.

These homegrown record labels made Memphis and Muscle Shoals the apexes of the
soul universe. When the hits started coming, northern record labels like Atlantic sent
such artists as Franklin, Pickett and my own beloved Dusty Springfield down South to
benefit from the Southern record-making magic.

There was money to be made for Northerners and Southerners alike. It was a mutually
beneficial business arrangement. But more importantly, Southern soul proved to be a
music that no one could resist. And in its home region, despite Jim Crow laws, white
and black kids began dancing to the same tunes — tunes which, even though most of
the dancers didn’t know it, were played by integrated bands.

The music still speaks for itself. Today, we offer for your consideration two lists of 10
songs each. The first is the list of songs that form what I’d call the canon — the sacred
texts of Southern soul music. You’ll likely be familiar with some of these.

But the second list might have you searching for tunes you’ve never heard. It is a list of
what I think are the 10 most overlooked Southern soul songs, the ones which were
worthy of the canon but were somehow neglected.

Please understand that these lists represent one soul-obsessed man’s opinions. They
should be read as the start of conversations, not the ending. (Your comments are
welcome on The Bitter Southerner’s Facebook page.)

Click each image below to view the list, hear the songs, and read the reasons they made the cut.

Next Week:Welcome to Zombieville

The Bitter Southerner asked journalist George Chidi to do something the rest of us were afraid to do. We asked George to dive deep into the dark heart of Dragon Con and "The Walking Dead" to answer the burning question, How the heck did Georgia become the zombie capital of the world?